Sessions from Google Ads are not tracking by Google Analytics

Question

I started to notice that my Google Ads clicks wasnt 100% counting by google analytics (For exemple, during a certain period I had 300 clicks and only 100 sessions were counted as Paid Search on analytics). So I contacted Google Ads Support, they investigated and came to me with this:

Actually, your site is losing the attribution of Google Ads because of an automatic redirection of the structure in which it was developed. When we have Google Ads linked with Google Analytics, they are talked through a parameter called GCLID. To verify this loss, follow the path I made (in several products, here is an example): 1- I accessed the link https://mywebsite.com/products/running-shoes?variant=15320930779194 2- After full site loading, I added the & gclid = Tester123 parameter to the URL (in the browser, so the final URL was https://mywebsite.com/products/running-shoes?variant=15320930779194&gclid=Tester123 ) and hit Enter 3- To understand if there is a redirect, the normal behavior would be for the URL to remain the same (with & gclid = Tester123 at the end), but in this case, the parameter some (and hence the assignment) So, the campaign actually appeared (not set) in Analytics, and could be assigned to any of the other channels (Direct, Organic, ...) For this to be resolved, the site structure must stop causing this automatic redirection in the final URL of each product. With this, the results will be effectively assigned to Google Ads.

They also said that if even if I want to use manual tracking (UTMs) I would still have that problem, since the redirections would keep spoiling it.

As I use Shopify as my website platform, I checked with them and I have no redirections that are causing this problem, at least not created by me nor that their support know.

So I am lost over all this. I dont know where to start solving this problem. Google doesnt tell me what kind of redirections may cause this, I dont use any kind of redirections, and Shopify cant tell me if their code causes this problem (what I dont believe, because other shopify websites would also been suffering from this).

So can anyone give me any direction about this? What redirections may be causing this lost of data? Thanks for your time!

Answer 1

One thing to note, Google Ads might have a different way of counting, there is the possibility of multiple clicks per session.

That said, you can try Google Tag Assistant , start your recording, click on one of your ads, follow that through and see the parameters being passed.

Unfortunately, it is hard to debug with limited information. The more details you can provide the better.

Answer 2

Check where your GA code is placed in the page code. If GA script is at the bottom of page or there are some heavy scripts above GA tracker, losses of bounced sessions can be large. Ie user enters the page and immediately closes it. GA script doesn't have time to download.

Why user closes the page immediately?

1. Сlick by mistake
2. Slow site

And check that all your landing pages are OK and have 200 server response.